High Fidelity

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mfunk9786
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High Fidelity

#1 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:20 pm

A High Fidelity TV series is coming with a female lead

Something tells me this is going to be a pretty tonedeaf undertaking less because of the gender of the lead and more because I'm not sure how something like High Fidelity as a 2018 TV series is going to play in general

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Re: TV of 2018

#2 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:27 pm

This is from the Deadline piece linked in that article
While the Touchstone Pictures movie was rated R, I hear the TV series — an optimistic-in-tone mixtape/diary rom-com — will be PG-13 and intended for family co-viewing, consistent with Disney’s plans for a family-friendly OTT service that is not expected not feature R-rated movies or series.
So it sounds like it will be High Fidelity in name only

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Re: TV of 2018

#3 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:45 pm

I'm sort of surprised High Fidelity was rated R. Just because of some f-words, I guess? It's been a while since I've seen it, but the last time I watched it I think my mother was watching it with me, so it certainly wasn't sending anyone channel flipping out of secondhand embarrassment.

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Re: TV of 2018

#4 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:58 pm

R for "language and some sexuality". It probably passed the "fuck" threshold, otherwise it would have been PG-13.

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Re: TV of 2018

#5 Post by swo17 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:59 pm

28 times apparently

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Re: High Fidelity

#6 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:41 pm



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Re: High Fidelity

#8 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jun 12, 2019 3:52 pm

She's got a roundabout connection to the original, at least! If they just make the TV series centered around her mother's character in the film, sign me up.

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Re: High Fidelity

#9 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jun 12, 2019 4:14 pm

This is even more embarrassing than when I didn’t realize Danny Huston was John Huston’s son a few weeks ago, but I didn’t know she was Bonet’s daughter!

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Re: High Fidelity

#10 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jun 12, 2019 4:15 pm

Bonet and Lenny Kravitz [though that one's a little easier to piece together], aka the Genetic Lottery

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Re: High Fidelity

#11 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Dec 20, 2019 6:46 pm


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High Fidelity

#12 Post by barryconvex » Tue Mar 03, 2020 12:18 am

really hate Hulu's attempt to reconfigure High Fidelity as a half hour sitcom. As a show about celebrating the joys of analog music it's a complete fraud as it doesn't give a rat's ass about music, analog or otherwise, and it proves it by opting against allowing the music to speak for itself and instead makes the serious error in judgment of letting the characters speak for it. Most every song is reduced to a hipness indicator when not being used for background atmosphere, something that wouldn't be so egregious if this wasn't a show about characters who supposedly live and breathe this stuff. These people this show focuses on are the type of pathetic creatures who, having failed in every other aspect of life, cling to their one area of semi-knowledge mostly as an occasion to listen to themselves spout drivel about things they read in Wax Poetics. They might sound like they know what they're talking about but it's usually regurgitation of someone else's opinions when it isn't rote memorization of meaningless rhetoric. This is something the movie got right: by presenting its supporting characters as people whose only refuge comes from the recorded word it accepted them on their own terms, without judgment while also seeing them as the social misfits they are. Cusack's strength as a character came from his gradually maturing worldview and ability to balance his love for records with meaningful relationships. The supporting cast of the show might be the same obnoxious assholes on the surface but it doesn't see them as outcasts but as quirky free thinkers liberated from the shackles of human contact by their fondness for esoterica and successful attempts to never leave their apartments. Kravitz is likable enough in the Cusack role even if I don't buy for a second that she has the ingenuity, motivation or force of personality to own a small business in NYC. The show also repeatedly shoots itself in the foot by having Kravitz speak directly to the camera as if it were a person in the room. This technique was inherited from the movie and it could be considered a stylistic homage but this is after Fleabag has come along and effectively claimed that device solely as its own. It feels passe here, lazy, and is just one of a number of things the show has recycled from the film as it seemingly desires to do little more than rehash rather than expand on the original novel. And speaking as an ex record store employee and someone who still spends an inordinate amount of time in used record stores, I think if I ever came across a place like this one with employees like these I'd tie up whoever was working that day and throw eggs at them, God knows I'd be justified in doing so if they were even half as grating as the people shown here.

I'd also like to know how this store stays in business with a model that is, as I understand it, based on employing the most unlikeable of people to generally make it difficult for anyone to buy anything while the owner, sealed off in a back room, does little other than pine away for lost loves. To start with, second hand record store owners are rarely found on the premises of their own shops as the majority of their time is spent scouring the immediate area, and sometimes the entire country, for people who are ready to part with their vinyl, something not easily done in this day and age when everyone knows they can make at least twice as much as any store will give them selling their collections themselves on ebay. The amount of sellable vinyl brought in by locals looking for quick cash probably amounts to less than 5% of the overall total. If an owner does work the store themselves it's in an attempt to keep their overhead down and probably because they've already amassed a huge backlog of vinyl before ever opening their doors or because they have a stash of ultra valuable first pressings they can sell off as needed to keep the store solvent and themselves out of the daily grind. As it is any legitimate used record store needs to maintain an outside stockpile of at least 20,000 records to rotate in a healthy variety of titles and to deal with the ebbs and flows of a business at the mercy of the vicissitudes of people's taste. That many records means an off site storage space is needed which when added to the rent, means it needs to do around $5k a month (this is NYC after all) in record sales just to break even. That's roughly 500 records costing at least ten bucks apiece the store needs to sell every month before the employees or the owner have made a nickel. That averages out to around 16 records a day, which may not seem like a lot but since most casual buyers balk at paying more than a couple bucks for any used record, and workdays are always going to be slow it's a figure higher than it seems.

So much is so wrong here (aside from my problem with its logistics which I concede is a minor issue despite my lengthy harangue) and it's doubly frustrating seeing something I have an interest in presented in such a lame way but I'll take it all back the moment this show produces a scene of the principal cast sitting around someones apartment, passing a blunt and drinking cheap liquor while letting a record, any record, play from start to finish without interruption. That means no enlightened comments about the song's production history, no disputes about where it stands in the artist's canon or where its placement should come on a playlist, no stupid top five lists and absolutely nothing to do with pop culture either. Just one scene of quiet contemplation where the characters show the music the respect they're supposed to feel for it like the one in Straight Outta Compton where Dre is lying on his bedroom floor at his mother's house vibing to a Roy Ayers record. That was a movie that knew how to communicate what it feels like to connect body and soul with a piece of music, and until HF does something similar it's nothing but a portrait of a few grossly immature and utterly annoying people dropping names and blowing hot air. And why the hell is Questlove attached to this? The show runners were obviously just looking for some quick credibility as opposed to valuing the input of the only person within 100 miles of this piece of shit who actually knows his stuff but it begs the question: why have a "musical advisor" at all if the best the show can up with to illustrate a lovelorn moment is "Nothing Compares 2 U"? If they genuinely needed someone to "advise" them to use that song for that scene this show's problems run a lot deeper than I thought.

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Re: TV of 2020

#13 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Mar 03, 2020 12:30 am

I consider the Frears movie to be an all-time favorite for many reasons that you hint at, but mostly because it meets the characters on their terms as you say and unapologetically acknowledges the defective superiority in the ego that comes with the territory of art-obsessed identities, while also showing how this kind of introverted selfish behavior can be translated into relationships, and growth through letting go and self-actualizing like changing tastes or re-evaluating lists. Despite not being very much like the personalities in the film there's a lot to relate to if choosing to identify rather than compare, and it's one of the very best romantic comedies on its own divorced from the cultural milieu. Glad to hear that I can skip this show, which I probably wasn't going to give a chance anyways, but thanks for taking one for the team

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Re: TV of 2020

#14 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Mar 03, 2020 4:45 am

barryconvex wrote:
Tue Mar 03, 2020 12:18 am
The show runners were obviously just looking for some quick credibility as opposed to valuing the input of the only person within 100 miles of this piece of shit who actually knows his stuff but it begs the question: why have a "musical advisor" at all if the best the show can up with to illustrate a lovelorn moment is "Nothing Compares 2 U"? If they genuinely needed someone to "advise" them to use that song for that scene this show's problems run a lot deeper than I thought.
Great post barryconvex. That last point also makes me think about the new trend for 'intimacy advisors' too. I would much rather people try, and potentially fail and look embarrassing or awkward (or not look 'cool') to express themselves personally in these areas than have a third party 'expert' come in to smooth everything other into uncontroversial blandness (its also why I think it was crazy when action scenes in Bond films were farmed out to Second Unit Directors, no matter how qualified, when that should be an integral part of the narrative being told rather than a modular piece of content slotted in). That removes one of the amazing things about art: the danger and actual expression of humanity of it. Of course the best outcome is someone with a unique vision and impeccable taste crafting a beautiful clear-eyed paen to record stores and its employees, but as well as that a show falling apart because it tries and fails spectacularly but retains a specific voice is always more interesting than something that plays it safe and ends up as nothing, or worse, expressing nothing: it ducks any potential controversy but also fails to make any individual impression either. And leaves nothing to really be able say about it one way or the other.

I suppose that's the difference between 'individual artistic statement' and 'regular product content to fill the theatre/TV schedule' though. And of course I know why intimacy advisors are becoming a thing in the current climate beyond this, but I'd be annoyed as a director if I had to hand over the reins of what should be the absolute key elements of a story or a character to someone 'better qualified' in the area to handle instead!

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Re: TV of 2020

#15 Post by swo17 » Tue Mar 03, 2020 11:39 am

I think the point of intimacy advisors is supposed to be more to avoid situations like the director asking the actor to do things they're personally uncomfortable with but afraid to say no to, e.g. the trouble James Franco ran into

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Re: TV of 2020

#16 Post by domino harvey » Tue Mar 03, 2020 11:41 am

The Marx Brothers will be shocked to learn Fleabag perfected direct address

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Re: High Fidelity

#17 Post by Fiery Angel » Tue Mar 03, 2020 11:51 am

And Jerry Lewis, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Monty Python, etc.

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Re: High Fidelity

#18 Post by Murdoch » Tue Mar 03, 2020 10:01 pm

And Frankie Muniz!

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